[Ozric Jonathan]

My experience is only with hermanns and I'm quite certain that contraptions of this sort are not necessary for them for UK keepers.

Certainly some tortoise species do need more humidity than you get over an open table in a typical UK home. Humidity levels of 70%+ are difficult to achieve over an open area and some forest species have those requirements.

Having said that, the humidity debate isn't resolved even for Mediterranean species. For a while we were encouraged to think that really small mediterranean tortoises in the wild lived at the bottom of piles of vegetation and various secret places where there was loads of humidity. Andy Highfield debunked that idea totally with field research and his view is that the small ones in reality spend their time in places with similar humidity to the larger ones. I still don't know what to think in that respect because for years there was a view that smaller tortoises had this need for greater humidity.


One thing that seems to have been right all along is that for the Mediterranean species at least, they do better outside. If the weather and conditions are at all tolerable, get them outside. Once out there, they know better than we can how to make the best of it. As a keeper I'm nowadays seeing myself as being someone who intervenes to enable them to be outside as much as possible.